Bermudians and Bermuda-based business can be forgiven for rolling our collective eyes at the breaking news of Mossack Fonseca.

This story will reignite the stale arguments over the ‘tax haven’ and ‘offshore’ labels. And yet again every small jurisdiction with a GDP well in excess of that of a similar-size population in G20 countries, will now have to beat back the myth of the tax haven.

Fighting out of one corner will be the parties who see all things offshore as evil, irregardless of the legality (nominee shareholding). In the other corner, there will be those who see all things offshore as perfectly fine, irregardless of the morality (vulture funds).

And that’s why this argument never resolves. Because one party speaks about conduct being moral whilst the other speaks of it being legal; and we haven’t touched on the myriad other positions in this argument. All of which have some weight.

For example, most people would frown upon a democratically elected leader keeping their own assets as far away from the public purse as possible whilst managing the public’s own financial future. But isn’t it arguable that what is legally permissible should be publicly palatable?

So the story of Mossack Fonseca swings all the way from outright criminality to conduct which has questionable public optics. All the while the various beneficiaries of key positions keep up the drumbeat of their own argument.

And somewhere in this grey area are people, whether in Panama or Bermuda or even London, trying to make a living, raise children and pass on moderate holdings.

There is a fundamental unfairness to this story.

Remember when Bermuda was labelled as a ‘tax haven’ by the EU whilst we were striving for Solvency II equivalency and were early signatories to the world’s largest ever tax information exchange agreement?

In watching the story of Mossack Fonseca unfold, there’s a clear lesson for us.

The picture isn’t as simple as the black and white of legal and illegal, as one side would have us believe. Nor it is as simple as moral and immoral, as the other side would have us believe.

Our lesson is that not all things legal are publicly palatable. And Bermuda must be as attentive to commercial necessity as international reputation. For without the latter, we can never have the former.

Jarion Richardson, FICA, CAMS, is the managing principal of Certainty, a compliance and regulatory consulting firm. He can be cobntacted on 704-2136, or at info@certainty.bm.